Zou Shiming to make $500K for his next fight

By Chris Williams: Light flyweight prospect Zou Shiming (1-0) made an incredible $300,000 in a four round bout against novice Eleazer Valenzuela (2-2-2, 1 KO’s) in beating him by a four round unanimous decision in the main event of the Fists of Gold card last Saturday night in Macao, China.

Shiming, 32, will next be fighting on the undercard of Manny Pacquiao’s next fight in September and will be making a reported $500,000 for what could be either a 4-round or a 6-round bout and will be the co-feature.

That’s huge money for a fighter that is just starting their career out and who may not ever pan out. Shiming’s trainer Freddie Roach believes he’s got the talent to win a world title by next year.

If that’s the case then Top Rank is going to have to think about finding better opposition to fight him because feeding him novices like Valenzuela isn’t going to get the job done if he’s only going to be fighting every four to five months.

At this rate, we could see Zou still facing 3rd tier opposition up to where he fights for a world title next year.

I watched Zou’s win over Valenzuela several times already, and I can’t for the life of me see where he’s got the talent to get anywhere in the division. Zou’s defense seems to be his best asset he has going for him, but it wasn’t good enough to keep him from getting hit by the inexperienced Valenzuela. Zou punches from too wide of an angle and he lacks power.

Zou just looked like a copy of featherweight Billy Dib, and not a good a copy. Zou is going to have problems if he fights for a world title because even the paper champions at light flyweight have much more power and skills than what Zou showed against Valenzuela. And of course Bob Arum of Top Ranks isn’t going to put Zou in with the best fighter in the light flyweight division in Roman Gonzalez.

Zou would be crushed by a fighter like that, and you can bet that Arum never let Zou get within 5,000 miles of Gonzalez. My guess is Arum is going to angle Zou against weak opposition and then scout out the weakest champion for him to fight in hopes he can somehow beat the fighter.